


a gift

by whalersandsailors



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, First time being marked, Mark of the Outsider, Pandyssia, and such a brief mention of Mr. Moray that I didn't even look up his name, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-09 00:40:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4327230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalersandsailors/pseuds/whalersandsailors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vera Moray is changed forever, deep in the heart of Pandyssia, that wild and forsaken land.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a gift

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Fugue Feast in July, Day 10, Prompt: Pandyssia.

The small caravan of excavators has traveled all day, and at last, they find a suitable place to set up camp despite the rocky and inhospitable terrain of Pandyssia. Though admittedly, there have been several casualties during their years wandering the continent, and it has become easier to find space for the dwindling numbers in their group. Vera Moray detaches herself from the rest as they pitch tents and talk amongst themselves. Most of them are jittery over the ferociously large hawk that had swooped over them not an hour before—nearly carrying away one of the servants. Vera clucks her tongue to herself, spying her husband at the end of the train sharing words with one of his associates, a fellow doctor and aspiring archaeologist. Vera finds her personal pack tied to one of the mules and digs out her journal. It is still a few hours until nightfall, and she does not plan to waste it. Book and pencils in hand, she hurries into the surrounding woods before anyone could see or stop her.

Her pace does not slow until the noise of the camp is faint. She slows her walk, taking in the trees around her. Vera finds a relatively smooth and clean rock to sit on, and she arranges her journal on her lap, charcoals placed on the rock beside her. She has found a relaxing hobby in sketching the unusual plant life that she encounters, and over the past few months, she has acquired a miniature collection, uniquely her own and uniquely Pandyssian. She is hardly an artist, having but a few years of drawing lessons as a girl, but she would be damned if she did nothing to chronicle the sights of this heavily unexplored land. The drawings are a nice distraction, and Vera often finds herself looking through them again, taking note of her improvements. She even feels a spark of pride in her chest for drawing so many plants that the natural philosophers in their group to swoon over them. Perhaps she will share her journal with that young man Sokolov upon her return. After all, Vera recognizes ambition when she sees it, and she hardly thinks that her own disappearing youth should keep her from participating in another young man’s success.

As she glances from the gnarled trees before her to the white paper, she begins to scratch a few lines that could resemble the trees. A few minutes pass, but she becomes increasingly frustrated as she fails to translate the subtler knots and patterns in the tree’s intricate and ancient skin. Her fist clenches around the charcoal, and she glares at the mess of lines on the paper. In a fit of anger, she rips the page out, crumpling the offending paper in her hands and tossing it into underbrush. She thinks about starting her drawing again, but as she stares at the towering trees, tangled bushes, and dark flowers, the idea exhausts her.

She closes her book and looks up above her, the afternoon light much darker in the forest than it was in the clearing for their camp. All she can see is a glimmer of sunlight filtering through the thick branches. A cold wind bursts past her, ruffling the pages of her book, opening it and sliding it off her lap, scattering the charcoal onto the ground.

She hears a whisper.

She whips her head around. No one is there.

The air is growing darker. She looks up again. The sunlight is gone.

Vera hesitates before she gathers her charcoal and book, turning to leave the way she came.

The path is gone. There is nothing but tangled bushes and trees. Darkness is quickly flooding the area, and Vera begins to panic.

She hears the whisper again, closer.

She looks behind her, in the direction of her discarded drawing. She sees a pinprick of light in the trees. Wonder fills her, but her feet remain frozen. The wind gusts through the air, pushing her towards the light, carrying the soft echo of a word.

Her name.

The wind is saying her name.

 _Vera_.

She cannot contain her curiosity anymore. Her book slips from her fingers, and she follows the wind’s guidance. Darkness has completely fallen around her, and her feet trod on unseen ground, as though stepping onto nothingness. The trees curl over her all while sliding aside for her to pass, creating a makeshift tunnel of branches and bark. The light grows bigger, a wispy blue spark that bobs and dances every time the wind rushes past.

The light is a lantern, Vera discovers as she reaches it. The lantern hangs from cord strapped to a piece of crumbling wall. She pauses at the obstacle before her. She reaches out and touches the mossy stone, similar to the bricks that constructed all the other discarded buildings she and her husband have explored in Pandyssia. She goes to the edge of the wall and looks past, seeing nothing but the neverending darkness that is likewise spread behind her. Unsure, she lays her hands flat against the wall, studying it in the pale, blue light.

_Vera. Islander. Stranger._

She startles when the voice is near. She bends over, placing her ear on the wall.

_Come closer, daughter of Morley._

There is a click. A few bricks fall away until there is a small opening in the wall that she can crawl through. Vera feels frightened but giddy all the same. She knows that she cannot deny where she is, and with the same courage that carried her to Pandyssia in the first place, she climbs onto her hands and knees and plunges deeper into the darkness.

The ground is cool and smooth beneath her hands, and when the wind blows now, it sounds muted. She tries standing, and when she does, more light fills the space, this time from candles—large ancient candles, melted into place, their burnt wicks glowing with the blue light. The room is small but filled to the brim with musty scrolls, draped cloth, and artifacts of varying size. Vera cannot help but smile in wonder in what she sees, this room containing more in a single space than she or her husband had discovered in all their time in Pandyssia. There are markings all over the walls, words in a language she cannot discern, and some of the markings make out pictures, of people, hunters, celestial beings, and creatures so fantastic that Vera wonders if they were monsters or gods.

She reaches out to the wall and brushes away some of the cloth. She flinches when the cloth dissolves at her touch, the ancient fabric ripping from dry rot. But the tear reveals the most curious drawing of them all. There is a large tentacled creature, its arms spread wide and curling around the people lying prostate before it, but in the center of the large mass is the silhouette of another man. Vera brushes her fingers against the silhouette. She wonders if he was a priest of some kind or perhaps a ruler the people treated as divine. It was curious symbolism, nonetheless. There are more symbols carved above the creature, but these do not look like the other words in the room, more hieroglyphic in their nature. Vera’s fingers twitch, and she wishes she had not dropped her journal earlier, imagining the worth of having these symbols for research.

Vera hears a rustling behind her. She glances over her shoulder and immediately twists around when she sees a young man, perched on a pile of rubble, watching her silently. He is nearly invisible, cloaked by the darkness of the room. Vera can barely make out his form in the dim light of the room. The air bristles with a sudden static, and she feels the back of her neck go cold. She is alarmed, though not because she did not hear him enter. She can see his eyes and is disturbed by their blackness. His very presence feels inhuman.

The man says nothing, only watching, as though expecting her to say something first.

“Who are you?” she says in a clear voice. Nerves or not, she would never allow herself to appear unsettled to a stranger.

The man tilts his head. “Who do you expect me to be, Vera Moray?”

Vera is hardly surprised when the man knows her name, but it stills makes her skin prickle to hear her name casually tossed from his lips.

“I don’t know you. How can I expect anything?”

The man stands with no effort. “Of course you know who I am.”

Vera frowns. She thinks of the picture behind her, the man trapped in the skin of a monster. Or perhaps, she thinks as she stares at the pale, slim man before her, a monster wearing the skin of a human. He steps closer, all slow and languid movement like one of the panthers of this land, eyeing and circling its prey. The blue light strikes his pale skin and sharp lines, and Vera is surprised that this—thing—inhabits such a disarming, handsome body.

“What is this place?” she finally asks, curiosity battling against her discomfort.

“An old place. A quiet place. A place of worship. A place of heresy. It has been and will be many, many things.”

“Are you what led me here?”

There was the barest of a smile on the man’s face. “Only because you wanted to come.”

Vera says nothing. She is captivated and terrified all at once. His eyes are so black. He doesn’t blink. She feels as though she is drowning in those eyes, but she cannot look away.

The man folds his arms over his chest. “I have been watching you for some time. I have watched you in Wynnedown and Dunwall, mingling among the elite, hating your role yet playing it all the same. I watched you come to this forgotten land, exploring forgotten places and speculating what might have been lost in the ruins.”

His smile grows. “What did you expect to find?”

Vera frowns, unsure what to make of him. The distance between them is closing. Is it terror she feels? Or excitement.

“I could hardly care that you claim to have watched me,” she quips coolly at him, ignoring the churning in her belly. “I want to know who you are and what you want.”

The man’s smile fades. He is close enough that she has to look up at him slightly.

“I have many names, Vera Moray, but the one you would know most is the Outsider. A title given by people who fear the unknown. Unlike you.”

Vera expects the name, but hearing it spoken sends shudders down her spine. A tiny, titillating thought flits through her mind, though, that this creature of legend is real, that it—that _he_ —has come to her. The Outsider has a pensive look, as though reading her thoughts before she can even think them. She feels small beneath his gaze but empowered by his attention.

“I see many things, Vera, and the path before you is a fascinating one. All that I want if for you to continue.” He pauses, tilting his head, that small smile of his returning. “Unhindered.”

His hand snakes out and grabs her arm before she can react. His touch freezes her. There is a shearing pain underneath his hand, and she cries out, crumbling to her knees, trying to claw his arm away but unable to break his grip. When her vision blurs from the pain, black edges framing her gaze, he releases her. She gasps, coming up for air as if she nearly drowned. The Outsider’s face is inches from her, and her eyes widen, her body tingling with nerves, her arm twitching from the disappearing pain.

Were it not for the pain, she would think this all a dream, but with the Outsider before her, his breath cold on her face, she does not wish to wake up if it is all in her mind. His small smile returns, and Vera’s eyes scour the youthful face of this god, this monster, this— She has no words to call him, but she thinks perhaps that is best.

His lips are cold, and Vera is lost forever.

“This is my gift to you,” he says softly over her mouth. “Use it wisely.”

And he’s gone. Vanished, as though he had never been there. Her lips still tingle from his, and her arm is numb. She does not know how long she lies there. Hours pass. Minutes pass. She cannot tell time here. When she does sit up, she pulls her sleeve up, examining the tender skin of her inner forearm. There is a mark, as black as the Outsider’s eyes, burned into her skin. She passes her fingers over it, and she feels the magic pulsating within it.

She releases a breathless laugh. No one will believe her tale when she returns to camp, but she has no intention of sharing this odd escapade. She pulls herself to her feet, taking one last, lingering look at the room before finding the hole in the wall and crawling back into the forest only to find sunlight and the quiet singing of birds. She squints when the light blinds her, and she looks around, surprised to find herself in the clearing from before, her journal and charcoal lying undisturbed on the ground. She looks behind her, seeing no hint of the wall from before, and it might all seem a dream except that when she looks down at her arm, the mark remains and is stark on her pale skin.

Vera stares at it, transfixed, before smiling. She titters, like a silly little girl. She kisses the skin of the mark before pulling her sleeve back over it. She gathers her book and charcoals, heading back to the camp.

“My gift,” she whispers to herself. She giggles again. “My gift. My gift.”

Birds fly overhead when they hear her approach. Their singing stops.

“ _Mine_.”

Vera feels like drawing again but no more flowers and trees. Instead, she sees blue lights, black eyes, cold lips, small room, rotting fabric, marks, marks, marks, marks.

Yes, that is what she will draw.

The end


End file.
